University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States

PHD

Biochemistry & Molecular Bio

Overview

overview

Dr. Cynthia Fuhrmann is Assistant Dean of Career & Professional Development in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and founded/directs the Center for Biomedical Career Development, dedicated to taking a scholarly approach to innovating and evaluating professional development training for scientists. With funding from the National Institute of Health (co-PI Phillip Zamore) and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Dr. Fuhrmann leads efforts to integrate career planning and professional development programs into the doctoral and postdoctoral training experience. Fuhrmann transitioned to UMMS in 2012 from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she founded the Preparing Future Faculty program and oversaw professional skills programs for biomedical scientists. She has a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Davis and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UCSF.

Dr. Fuhrmann speaks nationally on the incorporation of career and professional development into predoctoral and postdoctoral training, and leads workshops on creating an Individual Development Plan (among other topics).She co-developed and co-authored myIDP, an interactive career-planning website with more than 100,000 users. Funded by AAAS and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, myIDP assists science trainees with exploring career options, making career decisions, and creating an Individual Development Plan for achieving their goals.

Dr. Fuhrmann has great interest in national policy related to the career development of scientists. In 2011 she published the first study to look at (a) career preferences of doctoral and postdoctoral scholars in the basic biomedical sciences and (b) how these preferences differ based on year of training. Her work in this area has been cited or highlighted in Science, Nature Careers, the NIH Biomedical Workforce Working Group Report, Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Tomorrow's Professor. She is a member of the NIH BEST Consortium Steering Committee, Graduate Career Consortium, National Postdoctoral Association, and AAMC Graduate Research Education and Training (GREAT) Group. In 2015-16 she co-chaired, along with Bruce Alberts, the Enhancing Training working group for the ASBMB Summit on Sustaining the Biomedical Research Enterprise.